newyork.cbslocal.com – NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Police say a man jumped out of a popular Upper West Side eatery’s walk-in freezer, grabbed a knife and started attacking employees, then died later at a hospital on Sunday morning.

The incident happened at the height of the brunch rush around 11 a.m. at Sarabeth’s Restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue at West 80th Street.

Police say the kitchen staff did not recognize the person, described by police as a 54-year-old man who did not work at the restaurant, nor was he a former employee. Sarabeth’s staff told police they did not know how the man got into the freezer.

After being discovered, the man picked up a kitchen knife and yelled “away Satan” before attacking employees, who were able to disarm him and wrestle him to the ground.

Shortly afterwards, the man tried to talk with kitchen staff but suffered some kind of medical emergency.

A man who was at the front of the restaurant getting change at the time says employees at the front of the restaurant were panicking. “I was trying to talk to them. They were nervous, they didn’t know [how] to answer me, one person was running,” he told CBS 2.